


The Luckiest

by bluedawn



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Romance, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 05:58:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4694669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedawn/pseuds/bluedawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor doesn't believe in luck.  Not at all.  But...maybe, just maybe, he should. After all, billions of people, millions of years, thousands of planets, yet somehow they found one another. Again and again, they found each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Luckiest

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written a song-fic before (I came into the writing fandom after that ship had sailed, apparently). But I was listening to Ben Folds on repeat and this song grabbed me, shook me, and wouldn't let me go until I'd written this. 
> 
> There are appearances of quite a few Doctors and, I must warn you, there is also some minor character death (but in a life well-lived kind of way) - but it's not Rose or the Doctor. I like to the think of the Time War Doctor as Eight, but you're welcome to imagine the War Doctor there if you like. And the end...well, you can imagine whomever you like standing there with Rose. =) Actually, if you'd like to comment with which one you envision, I'd love to know!
> 
> *There's also a little, bitty shout-out to 'The Hedgehog Concept' by Carlisle_Cooperative, which is an amazing series that is sooooo fun to read. You should go read it. I'll be here when you get back.

_**I don't get many things right the first time.  
In fact, I am told that a lot.**_  
  
He tore through the silver trees, jumping streams and clambering over boulders, not daring to look back as he ran. In fact, he was barely managing to look _forward_. When his lungs burned (oh, to regenerate for the first time and finally get his respiratory bypass), he eventually slowed, panting. He’d almost reached the foot of the mountains and the grass was nearly up to his waist.  
  
He wanted to collapse into the tall grass and be forgotten. He wanted to shout and rage until his throat burned. He wanted...he wanted to  _run_.  
  
It was just...he couldn’t get anything right, could he? He never asked the right questions, he never had the proper answers, and he never, ever did the right things. Braxiatel was embarrassed by him, his cousins in Lungbarrow barely claimed him, and the only person who ever seemed even the slightest bit interested in him was Koschei. Finally, even Borusa had snapped at him today, snarling that he needed to learn his place if he was ever going to find a home on Gallifrey.  
  
It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t fit in! It wasn’t his fault he saw potential and possibility far beyond that of his fellow students. His first terrifying glance into the Schism had sent him bolting to the mountains and had made him itch for  _more_. So maybe he didn’t need to find a home on Gallifrey. If they didn’t want him, then he didn’t need them. Maybe he would just...leave. He could do that. He could steal a TARDIS and the entire universe could all be his! Well, someday at least. There was more out there. He  _knew_  there was, no matter how much the Time Lords tried to ignore it. The sweeping cosmos of history was full of dangerous, wonderful, exciting, and terrible things - and he would see them all.  
  
His small hands clenched to fists at his sides. So he never asked the right questions or found the proper answers? Well, fine. He would simply create his own right questions and form his own proper answers. He’d learn everything the Time Lords had to offer and then...oh, off he’d go, running far, far away to someplace even they couldn’t find him! He would explore the shining stars of a thousand galaxies, he would see the shimmering wonders of a thousand worlds and he would never, ever look back on this wretched, stifling planet.   
  
Somewhere, some _when_  out there in the wide, wild stars a bright, golden future was waiting, just for him.   
  
All he had to do was go and find it.  
  
_**Now I know all the wrong turns,  
the stumbles and falls brought me here.**_  
  
Standing under the dark orange sky of his failing world, he wondered if, somehow, he’d always known that this was coming. He’d spent his whole life running, after all. Running, it now seemed, simply from one mistake to another, blundering through the universe with a false sense of his own bloated superiority holding a ridiculous, hollow banner of perceived righteousness.  
  
He’d wanted no part of this stinking War. In fact, he’d run from it for decades, ignoring prophecies and summons and demands. He’d run, the Doctor doing what the Doctor did best. Yet here he was. The Oncoming Storm. The Runaway. The Renegade. It had been his fate all along, apparently. He’d spent so long trying to skirt the caustic edges of this warzone that somehow he’d never seen that the epicenter of this swirling, malicious cataclysm of death and destruction had been him the whole time.  
  
Here among the foothills of the mountains, he thought of the young boy he’d once been, so, so long ago. Back then, he’d always imagined that his lifetimes would be spent running toward some greater good, toward some golden redemption, toward a real home, somewhere out in the stars. He’d imagined love and praise and contentment, against all odds.  
  
But he’d been wrong, of course. It would appear that the persistent, tiresome race he has spent centuries running against Time itself, has turned out to be one enormous, cosmic joke. The path has always led him here in the end, returning his battered soul to the place that he’d once sworn never to even look back upon.   
  
There would be no accolades. There would be no trophy. There would be no redemption, no love, no home. All he would find in the end was a dark, silent finish-line and an unmarked tomb. He hefted the Moment and felt a deep, heavy, golden weight settle on his shoulders.  
  
Very well, then. If this was his fate, so be it.  
  
_No more._  
  
  
_**And where was I before the day  
That I first saw your lovely face?**_  
  
The heat was oppressive and scalding. The ash was thick and blinding, choking even for him. The ground shook, the volcano blazed, and the sky burned.  
  
He didn’t care.  
  
He stood on the beach, staring at the explosions directly ahead, the rock and the fire and the smoke all coalescing into a grim, bitter landscape; one that marked the end of the world, or this little bit of world, anyway. There was an empty hut a few yards away, the occupants warned away by him. Maybe it had been enough to save them. Maybe they’d make it to safety and look back, remembering a mysterious man in a leather jacket who’d told them to run for their lives, a foreboding man who travelled with Death as his constant companion. Maybe…  
  
Maybe not.   
  
His bleak gaze stared at the inferno, seeing another landscape in its stead. Had Gallifrey burned like this? Smoldered and simmered in its own acrid soot until it had been scorched away to nothing but myth and memory? He thought so, but he couldn’t remember much. His thoughts these days were choked by excruciating snatches of charred memories, memories that spent every day gouging deep, clawing craters of grief and guilt into his soul. Not to mention the gaping maw of bitter silence that had descended inside his crippled mind and was slowly corroding his tenuous grasp on sanity.  
  
The TARDIS was screeching at him, berating him, and pleading with him, but he ignored Her. She hadn’t let him freeze to death in the icy depths of the Atlantic, so he’d decided instead to burn.   
  
He took a step forward, toward the developing disaster, when the ringing of the TARDIS’ cloister bell finally managed to distract him.   
  
_Invasion!_  She called.  
  
He didn’t care.  
  
_Earth!_  She cajoled.  
  
The warped and twisted tumult of his remaining Time Sense began to burn and baulk at the sudden strain emanating from that stupid little event, whatever it was.  
  
_He didn’t care._  
  
_Autons!_  She claimed.  
  
The future began to waver into misshapen contortions of potential as he refused to acknowledge that he might play a role in this bloody planet’s fate or that this ridiculous lump of clay and apes would shape the whole bloody universe's fate...and how it would all come crashing down if he allowed it, if he didn’t go fix that stupid debacle. Because now there was no one else to fix it.   
  
Because of him.  
  
**He didn’t bloody care.**  
  
_2005!_  the TARDIS cried.  
  
He…  
  
Fine.  
  
One more time.  
  
  
_**Now I see it everyday  
And I know that I am  
I am, I am the luckiest**_  
  
He turned back to watch Rose exit the TARDIS, bouncing up onto the balls of his feet and sticking his hands in the pockets of his coat. This...oh, this was his favourite part. If she only knew how much he lived for these precious moments, these moments when he got to see the universe all over again through her marveling eyes. These charmed little twinkles of life that he experienced as a faithful supplicant to her wonder have kept him aloft in the sea of misery that had once, not so long ago, threatened to drown him.  
  
She stepped out of the ship and into the sunlight, her brilliant smile blazing even brighter than the twin suns on the horizon. She spun around once, taking in the gleaming beach of polished glass, the glistening ocean of cerulean blue, and the cloudless violet sky, before her warm gaze shifted to him, her hazel eyes excited and soft.  
  
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, rushing forward to throw her arms around him tightly, her human warmth pressed against his body, surrounding him completely with her love. He nuzzled down into her hair, allowing himself a deep breath to savour this moment, this one shimmering, shining moment of peace in the ever-changing universe around them.  
  
“Yes,” he whispered, too soft for her to hear, adding his own silent benediction.  
  
_**What if I'd been born fifty years before you  
In a house on the street where you live?  
Maybe I'd be outside as you passed on your bike  
Would I know?**_  
  
“Jo! Where are you? Come along, then!” he shouted, racing across the raggedy little park, his cape billowing behind him. He took little note of his surroundings, so focused was he on chasing the creature. London, Earth, some point in the 1990s, he thought. “We’re losing it!”  
  
“Right behind you!” the young woman running with him replied, breathlessly.   
  
He stopped abruptly, keen eyes darting around the scrappy grass and the shabby, drab cement buildings with nonsense graffitied on them, looking for any sign of either the small, fluffy blue alien or the anomaly that had probably attracted it.  
  
“I don’t see what you’re so worried about, Doctor,” his companion huffed, straightening her jumper. “It sounds tiny and cute and you said it would disappear on its own, anyway. Plus, according to you, I won’t even be able see it.”  
  
“I am not as worried about the katawali itself, as I am what it means, Jo,” he answered irritably, still unable to find the creature or, really, anything of interest. There was nothing out of place, no signs of distress, no anachronistic indicators of invasion or manipulation, no malicious species bent on Earth domination. In fact, the only other living things in this whole area seemed to be chubby squirrels and underfed children.  
  
“And what does it mean, again?” Jo prodded, despite his apparent irritation and distraction.   
  
Just then he felt something odd spark inside him. It was a small, niggling itch that prickled on the edge of his Time Sense. He spun on the spot, trying to pinpoint the source of the abnormality and answered automatically. “Katawali are a time-sensitive species that exist in the fourth dimension, which is why none of you humans notice them. They’re curious little fellows; it probably just wants to sniff around and see what the fuss is about. But if it came here, it’s because there is some sort of anomaly in the area’s Timelines, something enormous that drew its attention. And that, my dear Jo, can be very dangerous, indeed.”  
  
“Well, it can’t be that bad, can it, if you didn’t notice it?” Jo asked, but he barely even heard her because his attention was suddenly drawn to their left by an overwhelming pull.   
  
He stared down the street, standing very, very still, squinting into the bright, golden sunlight for something, anything to happen. Suddenly, a small human child, a little blonde girl of seven or eight, perhaps, flew past on an old, beat-up bicycle that was much too large for her. His hearts jolted unpleasantly as the bike wobbled, driving him so far as to step out into the street, but the girl managed to balance on her own and continued by, a wide, happy grin like the rising sun flashing at him from her triumphant face. He turned to watch her small silhouette disappear, staring in that direction long after she had vanished, as the strangest, disconcerting-yet-not-unpleasant feeling he couldn’t place settled over his hearts and in, of all places, his right hand.   
  
Distracted as he had been by her odd sense of familiarity and the phantom tingling of another hand in his hand, he hadn’t even taken note that in the little pink basket haphazardly tied to handle-bars of the too-large bicycle using second-hand ribbon and broken string, a small, fluffy blue alien had been crouched, cooing gleefully at the mysterious, aurelian girl.   
  
_**And in a wide sea of eyes  
I see one pair that I recognize**_  
  
He looked down at the dark amber liquid in his tumbler, swirling it just to watch the ice clink against the glass. The pub was busy and noisy, but he barely noticed the din or the crowd pushing in on all sides, so caught was he in his grief. Adric was dead, Tegan was gone, and he...well, he didn’t even know who he was anymore. Closing his eyes, he tipped back the scotch, drinking the entire thing and relishing the burn down his throat even if the alcohol would have little effect.  
  
It was hard, this life, and getting harder every day. He had left the stifling halls Gallifrey because he’d been tired of the pomposity, tired of the decrepit praxis, and tired of the status-quo. He’d gone out into the wide, wild universe seeking beauty and truth and adventure. But lately, it seemed all he could find was death, destruction, and heartsbreak.   
  
The sound of glass skating over hardwood registered to his ears just before he felt a small, cold object bump against his fingers. Looking down at the bar in front of him, he noticed another drink, identical to his first, resting innocuously by his clenched hand. He raised his eyes, swinging his head to the left to look down the bar for the source of his new beverage. He expected to find a randy human of some sort leering his way (this pretty, young face annoyingly attracted more than its share of ‘free’ drinks). He expected to have to put aside his grief in the face of a non-committal ‘thank-you-but-not-interested’ head nod (he was quite good with those).   
  
He  _didn’t_  expect to be completely bewitched. Something about the woman staring intently back at him from the opposite end of the mahogany bar reached into his soul and grabbed hold, stealing his breath and, somehow, his hearts. The cacophonous sounds and sights of the pub retreated, leaving only the two of them locked together in intense silence.  
  
He took a breath, trying to pinpoint what, exactly, about her was so ensnaring. She was pretty, yes, but not astonishingly so. Her outfit, slightly-battered blue leather jacket, a dark coloured shirt, and dark jeans, seemed functional and almost dismissively plain. He wondered, suddenly, if she had designed it to be precisely that way. Her wide mouth was only slightly quirked out of a straight, flat line and he had the fleeting thought that a mouth like hers was much better suited to smiling. The wry, sad expression on her face didn’t seem right for her.  
  
But mostly...it was her eyes.  
  
Oh, those eyes. They sang to him.  _I know you_ , they chimed, harmonizing with every fiber of his soul.  _I understand you,_  they intoned, chords deep the marrow of his bones ringing out in concert, overtones of his Timeline blending perfectly with hers.   
  
She turned away then, disappearing into the writhing sea of bodies and the wall of sound came crashing painfully back in, the bright lights and the smell of sweat and alcohol thundered back down on him. He stood, reaching out toward the space she had just occupied, half-formed questions that were already too late dying on his lips.  
  
He stared that direction long after his drink was gone and longer still after her haunting silhouette had faded from view. But strangely, wondrously, even through the disorienting clamour of humanity around him and the wrenching retreat her Timeline from his temporal eye, he could hear their song still caroling lyrically across star systems, an anthem for his future. He could still see those hazel eyes, burning brightly in front of him.   
  
_I love you,_  they’d whispered.  
  
_**I love you more than I have  
Ever found a way to say to you**_  
  
She doesn’t understand, not really. But, to be fair, he didn’t understand at first, either. He’s been all across this mad, wild universe and he’s seen so many things. He’s observed the rituals of a thousand planets, he’s seen a million different species, and he’s made the study of the cosmos his lives’ mission.   
  
Love, he has decided, is the most brilliant, most confounding, and most miraculous phenomenon of all. A thousand plus years and he’s still learning.  
  
Some cultures use physical contact to express affection. Hand-holding, hip-bumping, arms draped over shoulders, hugs, kisses, and caresses.  
  
Time Lords are not one of them.  
  
And yet he finds excuses to brush his hands over Rose Tyler’s skin at a truly alarming rate. In fact, he is statistically certain that, over the past few years, his hand has been connected to hers a much higher percentage of time than it has been empty. His personal space has become hers and her personal space has become his. Their hands think nothing of lingering on backs and forearms and waists. Their bodies gravitate to one another, always finding one another close by even when there are more spacious options available. His lips have brushed her forehead, her hand, her hair, her cheek, and, of late, they have started to move thrillingly closer and closer to her own. All expressions of his desire.  
  
_Maybe she knows._  
  
Some races exchange gifts as tokens of admiration. Baubles purchased on a whim, fabric that matches a lover’s eyes, beautiful little keepsakes given in exchange for a smile.   
  
Time Lords are not one of them.   
  
But somehow, he’s spent more than he cares to ever admit of his (rather fake) universal credit to buy her practically anything she’s ever admired. A scarf she ran her fingers over while passing a booth on Serica? Purchased and gruffly gifted in exchange for a kiss to his surprised, stoic brow. A tiny, TARDIS blue hedgehog she giggled at and compared to his (perfectly arranged, thank you very much) coiffure? Nabbed straightaway and discreetly put onto her nightstand, wearing a tiny pair of black glasses. Knick-knacks, trinkets, and a hundred other objects litter their now-shared home, spilling from her room into the library, the galley, the console room, and, to both of their surprises, his room. All tokens of his affection.   
  
_Maybe she knows._  
  
Some civilizations hold gestures and actions above all else to show true devotion: quests undertaken, masterpieces created, challenges issued and challenges won.  
  
Time Lords are not one of them.  
  
Still he strives to impress her, still he seeks to prove himself to her every day. He takes her to places that would normally never appeal to him (including back to her mother’s on a regular basis). He saves planets with more flourish and more flair than is probably needed. He rescues her from the darkest pits, he carves her likeness into stone perfection, and he rips apart anything that dares stand between them. He shares with her pieces of his past, the lumps of his battered soul that have never been offered to another’s hands formed into precious gems with her gentle influence. He allows her a place deep in his hearts and his home and his acceptance is the grandest gift he can give. All gestures of his love.  
  
_Maybe she knows._  
  
It’s not enough, he thinks. But maybe, just maybe, if he can keep trying, someday she’ll really know.   
  
_**Next door, there's an old man who lived to his 90's  
And one day, passed away in his sleep  
And his wife, she stayed for a couple of days  
Then passed away**_  
  
They’d been an odd sort, their neighbors had whispered. Nice, yes, couldn’t complain about that. They’d paid their taxes, they’d mowed their lawn, and they’d always purchased fundraising items from the schools. Their children and grandchildren were friendly and loud, bustling in to visit often and filling the street with their joy.  
  
Still, they’d been an odd sort.  
  
_Teachers,_  William Grottle from the barbershop had claimed.  
  
_No, professors,_  Millie Watters from up the road had argued.  
  
_Soldiers,_  Arthur Morris had declared, saying he was sure he’d seen them in some branch of the military, though which he couldn’t identify.  
  
_Sorcerers_ , old Mrs. Weatherstone had accused, whispering about missing years and conspiracies.  
  
_Adventurers,_  Susan Roth had insisted, telling wild tales that she’d supposedly heard from them because she had ‘reminded them of someone they’d once known’.  
  
No one knew where they’d come from and no one knew where they’d been. In fact, no one really knew anything about them and no one noticed the blue box that appeared in their back garden one morning. No one noticed the sad stranger who had stayed with them through their final days. And no one noticed that strange, blue box disappeared with a mournful wail when they were gone.  
  
_Ian Chesterton, loving husband, proud father.  
  
“A citizen of the universe and a gentleman to boot.”  
  
Barbara Wright Chesterton, loving wife, proud mother.  
  
“A queen among women and a teacher among all.”  
  
Their destiny was written in the stars. They went, and they found it. Together._  
  
_**I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way  
To tell you that I know we belong.**_  
  
He’s never been good with words.  
  
Well, that’s not true. Actually, he’s always been good with words. In fact, most of his lives (particularly this latest rendition), he has been quite loquacious. Garrulous. Prolix, wordy, voluble. He’s been known to talk his way into and out of trouble on a thousand planets. Sometimes even twice before breakfast! He’s read all the great poets, he’s met most of the universe’s famous authors. He’s heard them wax eloquent about their partners, sharing odes and poems that speak of breath-taking beauty and unshakeable love.   
  
But him? Those specific words? That particular trilogy of sounds?  
  
He’s never been good with  _those_  words and he’s never had the cause to use them before. Not like this. Not all strung together. In that particular order, with that particular meaning. He wasn’t sure why, exactly, but they just wouldn’t roll off his tongue like so many others. And so, he’s spent two lives trying to find others to offer her, other words to fill their stead.   
  
“That makes sense, well done,” said in grudging surprise long before he’d noticed that she could and would (and had) somehow waltzed through his walls and stolen his hearts.  
  
“Did I mention, it also travels in time?” extended trepidatiously from a hopeful man desperate for even the slightest glimpse of her shimmering compassion.  
  
“Come with me,” whispered softly against the grim backdrop of her burning planet as a sincere apology and an uncertain request from one who knew loss and sorrow better than any.  
  
“I’m so glad I met you,” confessed in a strange combination of fear and relief facing down the terrifying consequences of a mistake he hadn’t meant to make.  
  
“I could save the world but lose you,” uttered over a long table in a near-hopeless situation as he realized suddenly, terrifyingly, that she had taken precedence over everything else in his life.  
  
“I thought you were dead,” wrenched from a man who thought he had wiped out the one thing that had made his miserable existence worth anything at all.  
  
“Looks like it’s just you and me,” crowed contentedly with the excitement of new adventure only three hundred and sixty one floors away (especially as the idiotic leach fell further and further behind with every happy little ascending ‘ting’).  
  
“I wasn’t really going to leave you on your own,” conceded in the midst of a domestic that put the whole world at stake.  
  
“Well, I’ve got the moves but I wouldn’t want to boast,” offered casually (he hoped), interrupting their usual tango of two steps forward and three steps back, a dance that - under the threat of a new partner - he had just decided need a tempo shift.  
  
“I’m coming to get you,” declared without waver because she needed him. She was alive, she was ALIVE, and she needed him and nothing in the universe would stand in his way.  
  
“Rose, before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic,” professed proudly, as he offered her the highest compliment he could with this Northern burr, as he told her just how much she meant to him with the final words of a broken, battered soldier.  
  
Then, with new teeth and a new accent and a new terror that she wouldn’t accept him, he started again, offering her everything he could with words that fell out of his mouth at every opportunity, both good and bad. They came fast and they came fluently, falling from his effusive mouth left and right, from “Did you miss me?” all the way to “Rose Tyler…”  
  
And there it had been. His chance. His golden opportunity. He could have said it right then. But he hadn’t. His silver tongue failed him, his impeccable timing let him fall short, and he didn’t bloody say it.  
  
But she knew, right?  
  
Of course she knew.  
  
...Right?  
  
_**That I know that I am  
I am, I am the luckiest**_  
  
“Are you ready to go, darling?” he asked softly, walking up behind her to wrap his arms around her waist. Resting his chin on her shoulder, he pulled her close and felt her sigh in his arms as they both looked out over the horizon.  
  
She didn’t respond right away, merely placing her hands over his and leaning back into him. “Do you ever think about...” she began, then trailed off.  
  
“Think about what?” he prompted, turning his head slightly to place a light kiss against her neck.  
  
She took a deep breath, their combined hands rising and falling as the last few rays of sun faded into hues of orange and gold. “Do you ever think about how crazy it is that we found one another?” she asked, her voice low and intimate. “Billions of people, millions of years, thousands of planets...and somehow we found each other. Again and again, we found each other. How can that possibly be?”   
  
He tightened his arms around her and took a deep breath. Somehow, against all odds, he had found his bright, golden future after all. He has found his home, even if he's never, ever believed in luck. Maybe he should.  
  
“Because, Rose, I am the luckiest.”

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
